


She Put the Fall from Her Mind

by HarpiaHarpyja



Series: Two Halves - Reylo Weekly Challenge Flash Fiction [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gen, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, POV Rey (Star Wars), Pre-TFA, Rey Needs A Hug, Reylo Weekly Challenge, Young Ben Solo, Young Rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 05:56:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14254443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarpiaHarpyja/pseuds/HarpiaHarpyja
Summary: Feeling up for a challenge, thirteen-year-old Rey decides to embark on a particularly risky climb during a scavenging run inside a remote Star Destroyer wreck. Elsewhere in the galaxy, Ben Solo has been betrayed and is burning his past to the ground.Surely, the flashes of horror and violence Rey begins to see as she clings to the interior wall of the ship are just symptoms of hunger.





	She Put the Fall from Her Mind

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the fourth @two-halves-of-reylo Tumblr weekly challenge, “First Blood” theme.

One wrong placement of foot or hand, and she may as well kiss her ass goodbye. 

This became Rey’s mantra as she set up at the bottom of the narrow shaft inside the decades-old remains of a felled Star Destroyer. Probably, the ship had an actual name. Rey didn’t care what it was. She was here to work. This particular endeavor was a calculated risk. At thirteen, she was still small and scrawny enough to fit into the space and scale it, a feat many other scavengers—older, larger, weaker, or less flexible—could not claim. Still, there was not adequate room for her to properly make use of her usual climbing equipment. She could make herself reasonably secure, but would ultimately be relying on the integrity of her muscles to keep her balanced and anchored during the almost perfectly vertical climb. 

A challenge. Rey liked a challenge. If she slipped . . . well. She just wouldn’t slip. So far, she’d managed to keep that promise. 

She was roughly halfway up, wedged perilously between the walls and working out the next handhold that would allow her to hoist herself still higher. The space was proving more claustrophobic than it seemed from below. Which was saying something, as Rey was very accustomed to tight squeezes. She took a deep breath, wrinkling her nose a little at the strong smell of hot metal, ozone, and decaying fuel cells somewhere above. Next time, she would remember to cover her face better. 

( _Something was wrong. He perceived a flicker of light. Through closed eyelids it looked almost orange. But when he opened his eyes, still half asleep, it was the strong green strobe of a lightsaber. His master’s lightsaber. Why would he . . . no no no . . ._ )

Rey gasped and squeezed her eyes shut, clinging to the wall like a lizard. She’d seen something. Or felt it. Both, even? Almost like one of her dreams. But she wasn’t asleep, so that couldn’t be it. Carefully, she dug her toes a little deeper into the tiny ledge she was perched on, tested her fingers against the ridges of old metal, tried to take in as much of her limited surroundings as possible. The square of pale gray that was her destination, still so far above her head. The cool, musty air. The blue beam of light from her headlamp. The gaping mouth below, where she could no longer make out the floor.

She hadn’t eaten in nearly two days. It was likely her hunger was getting to her. So she needed to keep moving. The faster she finished up here, the faster she could get back to the outpost, clean up what she found, and trade it for the food she so desperately needed. 

Gritting her teeth, Rey continued her ascent. It didn’t get any easier, of course, but the level of concentration it demanded kept her from dwelling on that odd experience. It had reminded her of—

( _He’d never killed before. He never really thought he would. But his master was dead now, interred in the stone of the collapsed hut, and_ he’d _done that. And now he was watching the life leave the eyes of one of the padawans and feeling that pulse in the Force flicker out and all he could think was that he should have known it would come to this, it had always been coming to this, they’d all known it and he’d been a fool to think he could ever—_ )

Rey tipped a little. Her back hit the wall behind her hard, knocking the wind out of her momentarily, and she pressed her feet against the wall to keep herself from falling. She’d been sweating already, but now it came cold and her hands felt clammy. She couldn’t climb like this. She was getting dizzy and weak. One foot slipped, and she barely caught herself. It left her tilted at an odd angle. She couldn’t get properly upright.

This wasn’t hunger. She was dreaming again. Seeing someone else, in another place. It was familiar. He was familiar. Maybe none of this was real, and all she had to do was wait to wake—

( _Everything was on fire. He wasn’t sure who started that, or if it had been an accident that spread. Maybe it was him. It_ was _him. He could still hear yelling, and feet pounding over the grass and rocks. Not everyone was dead. Some had understood. Some would come with him. Where, exactly, he was not yet sure._ )

It was _him_. 

She tried to reach, press back and rebalance herself, but she slipped. First the one foot, then a hand. Then everything in her gave. Her legs buckled, her arms turned to putty, and she plummeted. Down the shaft, meters and meters, air sharp and cold as it tore past her ears, the metal sides unforgiving as she bumped and tumbled against them, tearing skin and clothing. She had no breath in her, so she couldn’t even scream. Her vision flickered.

( _The grass around his feet was tamped down with splotches of something dark. In the light of the fire and the moons, it was red, shining and sticky. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t his blood. He would wait, and he would know soon enough where to go. For now, the smoke would knit itself into the fibers of his hair and clothing. The buildings would fall in flame. The past could burn to ash, and finally he could stop fighting. Terror and pain and rage of betrayal would feed him until . . . until . . ._ )

Rey woke with a weak cry and a sharp pain in her head. She reached up to her forehead. Her hand came away streaked with blood. Her hair was tacky with it and stuck to her temple. She groaned and whimpered. She had fallen. It should have killed her. Terrified she might find it impossible, she tried to move her legs. They responded, though painfully. Her arms, too. Then her neck. 

After a minute or two she sat up. Her head throbbed and was still bleeding freely from a cut on her scalp, but she could tell it wasn’t deep. The stars in her eyes were fading. She had other cuts, too, and would be terribly bruised within the hour, she was sure. But she was alive. Somehow. Nothing was even broken. 

What had happened? Rey knew that she’d been fairly high up, and whatever it was had caused her to fall. But she couldn’t remember much else, beyond an inkling that she had been frightened. She’d hit her head—that had to be why the details escaped her. Perhaps later it would come to her. She slowly climbed to her feet, wincing as the cuts on her palms stung when they met metal to push her up.

All she could think was that something had kept her from the violent end she ought to have met here today. Protected her. It was ridiculous to think about. Rey wasn’t religious. She never had reason to be, out here. Even so, there were times she considered escaping this life, crossing the badlands, finding rumored villages where adherents of an ancient faith lived in peace. Such a life called to her, sometimes, for reasons she could not explain. Loneliness, probably.

She put her faith in other things. Her family returning for her one day. Her ability to keep herself alive out here until they did. 

Rey wrapped her head and face, then limped back toward the narrow crack in the ship’s hull that had allowed her to enter earlier, going slow until her muscles began to cooperate. When she emerged, the sun was still high in the sky. Already, she was putting the fall from her mind. There were more concrete matters to worry about, and if she was smart about it, there would be time to make sure she had a full belly before dark.


End file.
